“This…” Liu Dashao blinked his eyes, a sense of déjà vu washing over him.
“Look again carefully! Look at these spells!” Ni Ren Zhang urged.
At his words, Liu Dashao’s attention sharpened. Slowly, memories surfaced. Moments later, he finally grasped a clue: “This… this is from the Taiping Qingling Shu. I remember seeing it before.”
“Exactly!” Ni Ren Zhang emphasized each word. “This is the ‘Jiu Jie Fan Hun Zhen’ from chapter sixteen, paragraph twenty-four of the Taiping Qingling Shu. I remember it clearly.” At this moment, his lips trembled, his face flushed with excitement, and his fingernails dug into his flesh.
“It seems you’ve practically worn the pages out reading that book,” Liu Dashao chuckled in astonishment.
“It’s not just because of that!!” Ni Ren Zhang gritted his teeth.
“So…” It appeared that Ni Ren Zhang held far too many secrets.
“Although I still haven’t deciphered the secret of immortality within the book, and what I have is only a fragment, I can be certain that this ‘Jiu Jie Fan Hun Zhen’ is the final step toward eternal life—setting up a formation to preserve the soul! And the liquid inside this inner coffin isn’t ordinary liquid; it’s a mixture of the blood of the black tortoise and the qilin.”
“What?!” Liu Dashao was shocked. If what Ni Ren Zhang said was true, then who exactly was the woman submerged in the liquid?
“The person who constructed this tomb possessed techniques so profound that I have never encountered their like before. They are beyond the scope of normal reasoning,” Ni Ren Zhang trembled with excitement. If eternal life truly existed in this world, then was it not possible for him as well? He was thrilled because his belief had not been baseless fantasy or absurd nonsense. More exciting still, since the ‘Jiu Jie Fan Hun Zhen’ had already been set up here, there was a great chance that his current premature aging could be cured.
“Was the person who built this tomb Zhang Jiao?” Liu Dashao asked.
Ni Ren Zhang shook his head: “Partly right, partly wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“We might all have been deceived by the great reputation of the virtuous teacher Zhang Jiao. I suspect that behind Zhang Jiao, there was another person helping him. However, for some reason, this help was eventually suspended and stopped altogether. Otherwise, how could the imperial Han army, which had been utterly defeated by the Yellow Turban rebels months ago, suddenly crush their main force just months later?” Ni Ren Zhang sneered.
“The real master of the Taiping Jing wasn’t Zhang Jiao, but that other person. And this formation was also arranged by him—for Zhang Jiao.”
“Then who is this woman in the coffin?” Liu Dashao felt as if he were lost in fog, completely disoriented.
“Hmph, you really don’t know who this woman is? That purple sash robe with eight trigrams—during the Han dynasty, besides the Celestial Master Zhang Lu, who else could possibly wear it?!!” Ni Ren Zhang snapped sharply.
“He…” Liu Dashao suddenly understood.
“Exactly! This woman is the true Virtuous Teacher—Zhang Jiao!” Although Liu Dashao had already suspected something, and even more so after his previous dream, he had vaguely begun to grasp the truth. Yet when Ni Ren Zhang finally spoke it aloud, he still couldn’t quite accept it immediately—it felt like a thunderclap to his mind.
“He… she is Zhang Jiao?”
Ni Ren Zhang nodded: “The real Zhang Jiao!”
“But historically, wasn’t Zhang Jiao a man? And wasn’t he an old man?”
“Don’t believe history. History is all fabricated,” Ni Ren Zhang shook his head with a smile.
At that moment, Old Diao suddenly interjected: “Regardless of who this woman really is, I just feel that she doesn’t seem dead. It feels more like she’s in hibernation.”
“When the female corpse from Mawangdui was unearthed, although the body had been well-preserved through anti-decomposition treatments, once exposed to air, the corpse gradually changed color, shriveled, and eventually became a skeleton. But this corpse is different. Even after being exposed to air for so long, her skin remains rosy and fresh, showing no signs of accelerated decay. Even if we consider the influence of the formation, it shouldn’t reach such extremes. But if we say the tomb occupant is in hibernation, how can anyone survive without food or water for nearly a thousand years? Furthermore, snakes still consume energy and breathe even during hibernation. Yet this golden coffin is tightly sealed—there’s absolutely no way for air to enter, meaning the tomb occupant wouldn’t receive the oxygen necessary for hibernation.”
“This is where the mystery of the Taiping Qingling Shu lies,” Ni Ren Zhang explained. “It allows one to cycle through nine lifetimes while the true body remains frozen in a state of apparent death until one day it awakens naturally. In fact, this is true immortality—the immortality of consciousness.”
“Can such an incredible thing really exist in this world?” Old Diao was astonished for the first time.
“Yes, old sir. The world is far more complex than we currently understand,” Ni Ren Zhang said concisely. “Now is the moment to unravel all the mysteries.” Saying that, he turned to Liu Dashao: “Brother Liu, it’s time to begin!”
“Hehe, alright!” Liu Dashao took a deep breath to calm his nerves. After a while, he walked up to the golden coffin once more and gazed at the figure inside.
“If my guess is correct, during the master’s apparent death, this formation must have a guardian,” Ni Ren Zhang’s eyes sharpened. From behind his back, his hand slowly emerged, with a deep red water-parting spike held between his thumb and middle finger. This steel spike had three prongs—long in the center and shorter on both sides—extremely sharp. Strangely, the blade occasionally shimmered with faint red light, seeping through his fingers, giving an eerie feeling.
“The Jade Yang Spike?” Liu Dashao narrowed his eyes. Back in Xiu Shui Village, Zhang Enpu had once told him about Daoist sects and their magical artifacts. Chinese Daoism could be broadly divided into two major sects: Zhengyi and Quanzhen. Zhengyi mainly focused on talismans, spells, and the basic techniques of exorcism, progressing through mastery of magical arts. Quanzhen, on the other hand, emphasized internal alchemy, physical cultivation, and enhancing one’s health as a path to spiritual advancement. The magical artifacts of the Zhengyi Celestial Masters included the Celestial Seal and the Demon-subduing Sword of Heaven. The Quanzhen sect also had two main artifacts: one was the “Beidou Zhen Jing” (True Classic of the Northern Dipper), and the other was the Jade Yang Spike currently in Ni Ren Zhang’s hand. Because Zhang Enpu had described the Jade Yang Spike in great detail, Liu Dashao immediately recognized it upon seeing it now.
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